Month: October 2022

Small town Cefalu between Rocca mountain and Mediterranean gave us four peaceful nights, lively days and delicous fish meals. Allthough there were plenty of tourists you had a feeling of a small city as people were greeting and talking to each other. Old people , mainly men, sitting on benches and chatting with each other.

Pride of Cefalu is the Basilica built by the Normans. With its simple ruggedness it looked like a fortress. We climbed up to the tower and walked through a narrow corridor from northern to southern tower studied the mosaics the museum and small chapels.

Beach was easily reached in the middle of the town. Allthough the beach was full ot people, very few were swimming. For me the water temperature felt warm and pleasant.

Climbing up to the Rocca mountain was a must. Before entering the path you got a number and when coming back you had to inform at the registration. The path winded up the steep slope and climbing was hard in the sunny warm weather. View down to the town and Mediterranean was an award.

Our goal was Sicily, but on the way we stopped in Salerno, that was familiar to us from earlier journeys. For me it was actually third visit to Salerno and Amalfi coast. My favourite hostel Ave Gratia Plena, former cloister was unfortunately temporarily closed. Instead we chose a small bed & breakfast in old town. At common breakfast table was fascinating to meet people from different countries. During our short stop we visited old garden for medicinal plants Giardini Minerva. They serve delicious herbal teas and the plants are beautifully spread on terasses. Salerno is a good base to visit Amalfi coast small towns and islands like Capri and Ischia and ruins of Pompei, but now south tempted us. Some kilometers south of Salerno is Pattibaglia, which is mentioned in the novel of Waller, Madison Bridges, (Hiljaiset Sillat in Finnish). I was kind of curious as Robert Kincade in the book describes it as a beautiful place, which was also Franceska Johnson’s home town. I askel that from the B&B hostess, but she described it an ugly industrial town, home of mozzarella cheese. So we passed Pattibaglia, but I still wonder why the author wanted to mention it.

Ferrara is a modern lively town, streets are full of bikes, nearly everybody from kids to oldies cycle around. In Ferrara history is around you. Buildings from Middle age and Renesance are several and the whole town is protected by an old 9km long fortification.Savonarola,the Middle age strict reformist was born and studied here and the statue behind the castle reminds of him. The castle is surrounded by water, and carps are grown there. Before I saw one I thought they were small or middle sized fishes, but the one that showed up was a huge, two meters long creature with a wide gap.

Our hostess Laura adviced us three nice restaurants. You could get delicous three course meal and glass of regional wine with 25 Euros. Pumpkin and bolete were seasonal food served in different forms.

Ferrara is between Venice and Florence and it was an ideal place to stay for a few days. We made a day trip to Biennale where we visited Finnish, Estonian, Nordic, Danish, US, Belgium and Spanish pavillions. Venice scenery we only enjoyed during vaporetto drive through Grand canal to Santa Luzia railway station.

We passed to Italian side through the Brenner pass. Along the whole way from Innsbruck you could enjoy great mountain sceneries. We overnighted in Bolzano Bozen, which is a bilingual town with German majority. There is even a third language Ladin. Somehow bilingual places fascinate me, Guten Morgen Buon Giorno was greeting you could hear everywhere.

The pompous railway station building was from the fascism time built 1928. The influence of Eliel Saarinen’s Helsinki Railway station was mentioned.

Bolzano is famous for the Archealogical museum, where 5000 years old mummy of iceman Ötzi is kept. He was found early nineties and studied since that.

We overnighted in a big old Villa that served as a home of family Piha. Half of the Villa was reserved for tourists

Nighttrain Snälltåget to Berlin leaves from Stockholm 16.15, so we had time to spend in Stockholm. National museum and the fotoexhibition of Christer Strömholm was a good choice to spend extra hours. Museum also serves a proper lunch.

Our aim was to continue directly from Berlin to Nuernberg , but first train with free seats was in the afternoon so we had a few hours time to walk in the centrum and have coffee in Tiergarten. Except the memorial of Jews killed by Nazis, new to us was on the other side of the street memoriai of homosexuals persecuted under Nazism.

Nuernberg was a nice surprise, with its historical Old town, Albrecht Durer museum, lively atmosphere and lovely small hotei Franconia. We could not avoid eating Bratwursts in Historische Bratwurst kuche from 1419 and Wienerschnitzel the second day. Actually I only new beforehand that the Nazi trials in the forties were held in Nuernberg as well as the big party meeting in the thirties, but the great old history was a pleasant surprise.

Below are the photos, which were unfortunately taken by a tablet, my Canon was too heavy to curry during this trip.

On a ferry to Stockholm with Pekka my husband. I have sometimes said that I enjoy small adventures. The first adventure was at home one hour before we should leave home. I had activated our mobile interrail tickets in a new tablet, but could not remember the pin code that opens the device. The service adviced to return the factory reset, but the tickets would have disappeared, too. So I just had to believe in my intuition. I had tried all our normally used pin codes, but finally the code just came back to my mind and sesam it opened.

In the morning we admire the beautiful Stockholm archipelago, its villas and small oldfashion swimming huts on docks like in the Moomin world. Now ahead is a day in Stockholm and 16.15 Snälltåget night train towards Berlin.